[Nightmare]

>>>[$^%&#@Co$#e$%*#*on. Fra#$*%*ng$&$*trix link*$#$*% why doe$%*#@ it always$*##$&@ have to be#*$%&e%^#@ set it up. There, finally looks like our satellite link is back to 100%.  Maybe with this up my tech talker will quite swapping between English and binary code when he talks, I hope.

   As you chummers can tell, we're still in the game but frag did we get lucky against the Iron Cavalry.  I'm not sure how we did it, but my boys and me were able to give those fragging centaur the slip and bug out with nary a casualty for our squad.  I can't say the same for the other two squads, though.  I'm still not sure why the commander of the unit we're attached to ordered those two squads to help us out during our night operations that night because it just made us a large target for the Cavalry to come down on.  For some odd reason, though, it seems Nikopol's troops were more interested in going after the other squads cause other than our satlink being downed along with the numerous rounds flying in our area, we didn't really get hit that hard.  Plus they really didn't put up much of a pursuit once my squad started retreating.  Something about this feels odd, like Nikopol, or maybe even Lowfyr, wants to keep my squad in the game for some reason.  I don't like that idea one bit but I can't do much about it right now.  Right now, I need to get my boys back into combat shape after that hairy scrum.  I can't do much with a drained and tired spell slinger and a tech talker that keeps talking in binary code, so looks like it's time to hunker down away from everyone out there and let some of the other drekheads take each other out. Once we've rested up, I plan on finding out what the frag the Cavalry wants to keep us in the game instead of knocking us out of competition for this stage of the Desert Wars.

I'm not sure what the frag you chummers are up to with the Seattle Matrix grid but whatever is up seems messy at best.  You chummers want me to holler up a local decker or two I know to come help out with your mess?

Vendetta, you said the area that the gravesite was had become gang central, right? Drek, I'm sorry I sent you in there without enough info, chummer, I should've done more research. You lose anyone on your team? Was the grave untouched or had they torn in up?  Frag! Why didn't I go do this myself earlier?]<<<<

--Nightmare (09:03:36/06-17-2076)

[Mirikon]

>>>>>[Ugh. Who let the Rusted Stilettos out of Glow City? I was checking on one of my safehouses in Redmond, and found the damn fools practically on my doorstep. Crazy bastards tried to shoot me, thinking they could trade my bike for food, or drugs, or whatever. Didn't take kindly to that. Anyways, I gave their bodies to the ghoul who runs security for that safehouse, which paid me up in full until the end of the year. Odd thing is one of them had a tattoo that marked him as one of the Isotopes. What would the dragon be doing with the Stilettos?]<<<<<

--Iceblade (12:40:23/06-17-76)

[Vendetta Violent]

>>>>>[It's null sweat, Nightmare. I went alone. I know, fun right? Realized like quicksilver that I was walking into a situation when I saw the tags. Guess these guys made a name for themselves around there. So anyway, there I am realizing that skirt I talked about a few months ago was maybe a little too short all the sudden and unlike that job it didn't work so great for this one. What the hell anyway, I thought. Coulda went invisible too but didn't. In retrospect maybe I wanted a fight, you know? The kind of scumbags that take up a graveyard need to be reminded that they might bite off more then they can chew. So I'm putting the flowers on the grave, just like you said and I get a bit sentimental. Reminded me of some things I've never had. Tried to walk away and some gangers make some cat calls and I blow 'em off when they make their threats. Then they threatened the grave and thrashed the flowers. Had no choice but to send a message, hope you don't mind. Your plots still untouched and I have a good feeling it might just stay that way.]<<<<<

     -- Vendetta Violent (19:56:23/06-19-2076)

[farothel]

>>>>>[ I'm back.  I've been taking a small trip to the metaplanes, but it took longer then I had expected.  Time runs differently there (or at least it did on the one I was), as I thought it was a day instead of a week.  Thank Ra for life support machines.  Although it was Ra who kept me waiting for a couple of hours (probably a day or two here) before he wanted to order Thoth to give me the information I needed.  But I got it in the end and that's what counts.  Now it's time for an old fashioned burger with fries.  The real stuff after a week of tube feeding. ]<<<<<

     -- KItten (07:35:52/06-20-2076)

[Nightmare]

>>>>[Hey, thanks, Vendetta.  Yeah, those drekheaded gangers deserved the message.  Think after I'm finished with the desert Wars I'll head over to Hanover and clean the cemetery out, just for fun.  Nobody frags with my father's resting place like that and gets away with it.  That and they sound like a bunch of lowlifes that no one will miss anyways.]<<<<

--Nightmare (01:09:00/06-22-2076)

[Nightmare]

>>>>[My tech talker asked me something the other day why I was posting the goings on here in Desert Wars to shadowrunners.  That reminded me, aside from the new toys and betting on the outcome, most runners really could care less about Desert Wars because very few are really going to end up over here participating in it (no offense to those that do end up over here).  I mean, you chummers don't really worry that it turned out that the fracas I mentioned earlier between an Ares-sponsored team and some other groups turned out to have to do with a handful of flesh-form bugs that infiltrated the Ares unit.  And nobody but me really gives a frag that before I get out of this fragging desert land I've got to have a meet with Nikopol to talk biz.  Or that I really dread that meet.  I respect Nikopol and have worked with him on a few occasion, but I already told his boss's lackey Scale after that cluster fragged merc op in '74 I was done taking S-K jobs.  Gob of nuyen and gear don't bring back top-notch talent.  So I guess I'm saying, I'm going to stop the running commentary on this fragged up military game (though when the championship match is done, I might tell you where we finished) and just let you chummers watch the trid of the thing.]<<<<<

--Nightmare (09:39:45/06-27-2076)

[farothel]

>>>>[I'm interested in the Desert Wars.  I've been there as well, back when I was still a merc myself.  As mage I'm more interested in the astral battle, but the rest can be quite fun as well. ]<<<<<

--Kitten (19:23:20/06-27-2076)

[Mirikon]

>>>>>[Heh. Desert wars. I went there once, but not as a participant. Well, I was working, but not for any official team. My job was to help 'improve morale' on one side, and 'impair combat readiness' on the other, and so on. Whole time I was there, I didn't fire a shot, never got close enough to the action to even see a real skirmish, much less the real battles. I was mostly in the staging areas, where an outsider could move from unit to unit without making a scene. Especially when I was a 'gift' for a female officer, or was bringing a couple cases of booze to sell, just before action started, or... Well, you get the idea. There's a whole support network behind the Desert Wars, and the Desert Wars aren't just a proxy war between nations and megacorps, but big business as well. So of course there's going to be shadow activity at the Wars. It just isn't usually in the actual fighting, because if runners are going up against military forces, then they've screwed up royally. That's the difference between mercs and soldiers, and runners. A merc with a gun can kill you just as easily as a runner with a gun, but they're trained to fight other mercs and military types, and that's what they're equipped for. Runners are best suited for hit and run ops, instead of drawn out fights. If you go through a second clip in the same fight, you've been there WAY too long.

I may have military training, but I'd need a serious refresher course before I would be fit to go into full-on military engagements. Relearn the habits that keep you alive on the battlefield, but get you killed in the shadows. And having a solid command structure, instead of reporting to Mr. Johnson, or passing some intel on to a contact. And switching from 'try to talk things out' to 'shoot first'. Lots of things to relearn. A runner or a runner team can make a good addition to a merc unit if there are 'unconventional' objectives that need to be attained, and having a merc in your runner crew really helps when you're expecting heavy fire, but the two are basically two sides of the same coin, so it is hard for them to mix well.]<<<<<

--Iceblade (14:01:23/06-27-76)

[farothel]

>>>>[ It's different for mages, as we are not frontal combat people either.  I always was more of a support mage, so the change was quite easy for me.  I understand what you are saying though, some of the outfit wouldn't be able to do what I do now, except in a few cases.  Or as diversion. ]<<<<<

--Kitten (22:48:20/06-27-2076)

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

>>>>>[ I don't care about Desert Wars per se, but that info about the Ares unit?  That's something I do care about.  Assemble a file, Nightmare.  You'll be ... significantly compensated. ]<<<<<
          -- The Wyrm Ouroboros (21:30:00/06-27-2076)

[Taejix]

>>>>>[Some folks like to talk about stuff and the desert wars are interesting at least. Don't feel obliged to stop.

Not sure I'd be up for that sort of thing myself. Too much sun.

That stuff about bugs though? I long for the days when Ares just shot the things instead of, you know, being them.]<<<<<
--Ruthless (16:49:05/06-28-2076)

[Nightmare]

>>>>[Ehhhh...sorry about the rant there before hand, I think I woke up on the wrong side of a sand dune or such.  Though, it is true that I'm going to avoid posting much more on the Desert Wars mainly because with only two months left, the competition is starting to heat up a bit.

Farothel, I don't know about other spell slingers, but mine actually spends quite a bit of time working front lines with me.  Of course, seeing as my squad is a bit closer to Special Forces than the regular squads, we do things a bit different.  Night ops involving sabotage and ambushes are what really put us over the top.

Wyrm, not sure how much more I can find about the bugs in that Ares-sponsored unit because it looks like those in charge of the Desert Wars are trying to make it disappear both via the 'trix and physically.  The battle ground where everything went down looks like someone decided to go all "scorched earth" on it, which left very few traces.  If my crew can get some downtime, my tech talker might be able to dig up some footage from the Resonance but downtime is getting hard to find.  I do know from talking to the handful of mercs that have since been eliminated from the competition that were near there say that quite a few of the Ares soldiers that weren't flesh-formed were freaking out as much as everyone else.  Makes me wonder, could the bugs have slipped into the unit to intentionally make Ares look bad?  Like I said, if we can get some downtime we'll do some digging and post what we find.]<<<<

--Nightmare (01:23:23/06-29-2076)

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

>>>>>[ Nightmare, don't worry about sending your technomancer into the Library for something; it'd take way too long, and it sounds like you don't have the leisure to babysit him for three or five days.  If he can give us time/date/location pointers, I know some of the best in the business for doing that kind of dive.  Pass us what information you can, and I'll arrange for things - including the names of those competitionally-eliminated (as compared to just 'eliminated') gunmen for us to send someone to interview.  If you can shoot them a note, saying that someone is going to ask them ... well, drop me a line, we'll arrange it in private. ]<<<<<
          -- The Wyrm Ouroboros (15:45:00/06-30-2076)

[Nightmare]

>>>>[Actually Wyrm, I was able to get some comm time with my fixer in Seattle the other day.  I told her to get me three chummers I know to get their hoops over here because I was going to need them for some biz.  Combined with getting the three under contract by my employer and a little 'trix work by my tech talker to make them appear to have been here since the beginning, I think we might have enough feet on the ground to start investigating what went down with the bugs while still being able to keep competitive in Desert Wars.

It looks like two of my reinforcements - my chummer, King Chowda, and an albino bounty hunter I know out of Chicago named Frost - should arrive in the next day or two which will allow my tech talker to start delving into the Resonance.  We plan that while he's out to la-la land that Frost will watch his hoop and Chowda will take his place in the field so we don't get our hoops fragged by lousy drek-eating opposition deckers.

The last member of the team - Dusty Ryder, a smuggler who runs a souped-up Ares Venture across most of America - should show up early next week along some extra gear I told her to pick up from one of my bolt holes, mainly the Onotari JP-K50 I earned back in '74.  I'm not big on the gun, I prefer my Berret to any other weapon, but the fact that it can also double as an assault rifle at closer ranges might prove useful.

I'll keep you chummers in the loop.]<<<<

--Nightmare (09:23:23/07-1-2076)

[farothel]

>>>>[ If you need a mage who knows her way around Desert wars and Africa in general, PM me.  Standard rates apply of course. ]<<<<<

--Kitten (18:23:55/07-01-2076)